Afghanistan wakes up to uncertain future

The seemingly surreptitious withdrawal of US forces from their Bagram air base recently ought to have been one of the rudest awakenings for hapless and bloodied Afghanistan. The withdrawal from the air base was coming right along, since it was to be a notable event in the overall withdrawal process from the country of US and Western forces, but the US abandonment of Bagram reportedly happened under the cover of darkness and with considerable secrecy.

No event seems to dramatize more the US’ anxiety to be finally rid of the responsibilities it seemingly burdened itself with in regard to Afghanistan. The development seems to smack of a sense of urgency on the part of the US “to go while the going is good”.

The Biden administration had initially set September this year as the time for the completion of the troop withdrawal but the indications at present are that the process would be completed way ahead of schedule. But the obvious ethical questions arising from this decision to leave Afghanistan to its devices are being benignly ignored by the US and its Western partners. Where do the Afghan people go from here? Are they not being abandoned to a future rife with dangerous risks and uncertainties?

Observers may argue that the Afghan people were never a prime consideration for the US, since it is the strategic location, in the main, of Afghanistan that was prized by the foremost Western powers right through modern history and that it was the location factor, once again, that prompted the USSR to seize hold of Afghanistan in the late seventies.

However, states that claim to be major democracies, such as the US, cannot evade the responsibility of being accountable for the wellbeing of people suffering the agonies of conflict and war anywhere, provided they want the world to consider their pro-democracy pronouncements as empty prattle. This responsibility weighs particularly heavily on the Permanent Members of the UN Security Council. Thus far, these Members have been doing little else than spar with each other over matters relating to their power and influence in the world but they run the risk of being seen as ineffective and self-serving by those sections of global opinion who consider themselves conscience-bound to committedly uphold democratic values and consistently work towards progressive change.

Accordingly, civilized sections of the international community cannot look the other way in this the Afghan people’s hour of need. With the US withdrawing from the country the Taliban is losing no time in filling the power vacuum that has opened up in Afghanistan. For those sections that are committed to democratic values, the news right now could be quite unsettling. Afghan government forces are, apparently, no match for the Taliban. Some government security forces personnel are reportedly fleeing the country or joining the Taliban. It seems to be only a matter of time before the Taliban re-establishes its authority and governing power in Afghanistan.

The latter prospect is unthinkable for democratic opinion within Afghanistan and outside it. Representing a strand of Islam of the more hard line kind, the Taliban and its ally the Al-Qaeda, are bound to follow a highly repressive socio-economic and governing policy. The world would be able to assess the magnitude of this situation by revisiting the Afghanistan of the nineties when the Taliban was in power subsequent to the Soviet withdrawal. Essentially, democracy, as generally understood, and all that it stands for were shunned by the Taliban regime of those times. It is only to be expected that the world would be having a re-run of the nineties when the Taliban regains power.

Referring to war and conflict-ridden countries the world over, the UNHCR was quoted as saying recently that the number of people who have been forced to flee their homes in these countries had risen to a ‘record 82 million despite the impact of the pandemic.’ The UNHRC went on to say that more than 1 per cent of the world’s population is thus displaced. Elaborating, the agency said: ‘Many were forced to flee because of persecution, conflict, violence and human rights violations.’

If war and conflict are allowed to perpetuate themselves in Afghanistan, it would be only a matter of time before the country contributes its own substantial numbers to the “bleeding statistics” of the war-torn countries in focus. Although it may be true that the Taliban has gained the upper hand in the fighting in Afghanistan, the strife and violence in the country could not be expected to peter out in a hurry. Long-running conflict and war could be predicted for the country, unless international mediation prevents it from degenerating steadily into chronic lawlessness. The time is now for those powers that are truly committed to democracy to initiate a political solution in Afghanistan.

However, South Asia is likely to have her own fair share of divisive problems as a result of the Afghan turmoil. With the re-advent of the Taliban in Afghanistan, we are likely to see a resurgence of identity-based conflicts and strife in this region. India did right by initiating a dialogue with the Taliban because conflict-management of some sort is needed at this juncture to prevent Taliban-linked issues from further undermining India-Pakistan relations. Besides, Pakistan’s tribal regions in particular could prove ungovernable with the ascendance of the Taliban which would prove a primal influence in injecting life into religious identity-based groups in Pakistan’s tribal belt bordering Afghanistan. Generally, identity politics would have a huge lease of life, which in turn means that democracy in the region would suffer a setback.

It is hoped that countries of South Asia that claim to be in the democratic fold would refrain from nurturing and encouraging identity politics in consideration of the need for regional solidarity. Narrow identity-based politics get badly in the way of the democratic process and its associated institutions and Sri Lanka too witnesses such deleterious trends. At the moment identity politics is getting in the way of India and Pakistan building stronger bridges of amity between them. A renewed region-wide discussion on these issues would prove beneficial for South Asia.